Anyone who thinks military rule bends toward democracy in Egypt
has misread the country's history.

By Sarah Gold

August 07,
2013 "Information
Clearing House -
Many Egyptians and Western critics of the Muslim Brotherhood
welcomed the military coup that recently toppled the country’s
elected Brotherhood-led government, praising the military for
safeguarding secularism and “democracy.” This betrays a gross
misreading of the country’s history.

The
Egyptian coup of 2013, after all, was by no means its first.
Military dominance has been a fact of Egyptian political life
since at least 1952, when Major Gamal Abdel Nasser led a coup
against Egypt’s British-backed monarchy. In comparing these two
instances, the number of similarities suggests that there is
nothing inevitable about the military relinquishing its hold on
the country.

During the
early to mid 20th century, the monarch King Farouk
was the formal ruler of Egypt. However, most Egyptians
understood that Farouk was a puppet of the British, who held
true control over the state and its government. British control
of the military in particular did not sit well with many
officers, nine of whom began to covertly recruit a broad array
of officers sympathetic to their idea for a movement of “Free
Officers.”

This
foreign presence also led to protests spearheaded by the youth
and the parliament’s largest opposition party, the Muslim
Brotherhood. Drawing on these grievances and others, the
Nasser-led Free Officer movement was able to craft a unifying
nationalist narrative. When the time was right, they struck,
successfully overthrowing King Farouk in July 1952. Egyptians of
all stripes gathered in the streets in celebration.

Sounds
familiar, doesn’t it?

A
Familiar Script

This time
around, it was President Mohamed Morsi’s attempts to consolidate
power for the Muslim Brotherhood—and take it away from the
military—that did not sit right. The widespread youth- and
opposition-led anti-Morsi protests that gripped Egypt at the end
of June provided the perfect opportunity for the military to
step in and forcefully depose the nuisance leader. However, this
time that leader was democratically elected, demonstrating the
institution’s
disregard for democracy when it does not operate in the
military’s interests.

But that’s
not where the similarities end.

After the
Free Officers’ 1952 coup, military officers dissolved parliament
and the constitution, appointed an interim head of government,
and instructed him to form a cabinet. The Revolutionary Command
Council (RCC), mostly made up of the nine original Free Officers
and under Nasser’s leadership, proceeded to dictate interim
policy to the new civilian cabinet.

Following
the formal Free-Officerization of Egypt’s new government, the
RCC government launched a campaign to eliminate any threat to
its power. This included an increase in the number of Free
Officers appointed to ministerial positions, a ban on all
political parties, a specific crackdown on the Muslim
Brotherhood, and the trial, conviction, and disenfranchisement
of many of the previous regime’s public servants on the
allegation that they had “abused the public trust to their own
advantage.” The junta encountered much popular resistance, but
it was acquiring too much power for the opposition to stop it.

Today,
something similar has taken place. After the military deposed
Morsi, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)—reprising
a role it played after the earlier ouster of Mubarak—suspended
the constitution, disbanded parliament, appointed Mubarak-era
jurist Adly Mansour as the interim head of government, and
instructed him to put together his cabinet. Not only must these
new leaders answer to SCAF, but coup leader General Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi right off the bat secured a
formal position in that cabinet as the first deputy prime
minister and minister of defense, entrenching the military more
deeply and formally in Egypt’s fluctuating political system.

A
spokesperson for Sisi said “that although the general was not
running for the presidency, there was nothing to prevent him
from so doing if he retired from the military.” This information
is alarming, although frankly Sisi has enough power already that
he does not need to run for president. It is also worth noting
that in his thesis, written in 2006 while studying at U.S. Army
War College in Pennsylvania, Sisi stated that establishing
caliphate-style leadership “is widely recognized as the goal for
any new form of government” in the Middle East—an insight,
perhaps, into the general’s abiding distrust of democracy in the
region.

While
political parties have not been formally banned, the military is
engaging in a brutal crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood—those
“abusers of the public trust”—by accusing members of inciting
violence, excluding Islamists from the interim cabinet, and
shutting down all anti-military, pro-Morsi, and
Brotherhood-sympathetic TV channels. Add to this, of course, the
horrendous massacres of pro-Morsi demonstrators in the streets.

A
Missed Opportunity

If there
was one force that stood a chance of reducing the military’s
power after Egypt’s long years of authoritarian rule, it was the
Brotherhood. Underground for decades, the Brotherhood had plenty
of time to fume against the military and organize ways of
pushing back against it, particularly in a democratic framework.
But overtaken by political blunders of its own, it fell short.
Though deeply divisive, the military’s actions have been met not
with resistance but with overwhelming support from much of
Egypt’s population.

But come
the day when the military’s interests do not coincide with the
people’s, Egyptians will regret that all that power was
concentrated in one place. And that goes not only for political
power, but also for economic power and military power.

All this
is exacerbated by continued U.S. aid to Egypt’s military—aid
that it may use as it pleases, as it enjoys full autonomy from
any form of oversight—and Washington’s failure to hold the
military accountable for what it does with that money. One can
only wonder if the civilian government might have fared better
if Washington had
lived up to its promises to deliver development assistance.

In light
of the recent
massacres of Muslim Brotherhood members—as well as the U.S.
prohibition against providing aid to coup governments, which the
Obama administration has
conveniently sidestepped—that aid should be suspended. The
United States must not finance an increasingly brutal regime, a
regime whose actions also create the added danger of possibly
radicalizing moderate Islamists. The reinstitution of aid must
be contingent on a peaceful transition to a civilian, democratic
government; free, fair, inclusive elections; and respect for
human rights. Even then, distribution of aid between must be
reevaluated: more for economic and political stability, less for
the military.

It is
important that Egyptians—including members of the Muslim
Brotherhood—take action now and during the redrafting of the
constitution to check, reduce, and redistribute the military’s
power. They must establish some form of civilian oversight over
military activities, including its economic enterprises.
Otherwise they’ll risk never achieving a legitimate democracy
for the people and by the people, not the military.

We ask readers to play a proactive role and click
the "Report link [at the base of each comment] when
in your opinion, comments cross the line and become
purely offensive, racist or disrespectful to others.

In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)